An issue with an Ameren Missouri transmission line that feeds into Rolla led to a power outage that affected about half of the city early Saturday morning, Dec. 29.

Rodney Bourne, general manager of Rolla Municipal Utilities (RMU), did not have specific details of the problem or the number of customers affected when contacted Sunday, but he provided the Rolla Daily News with the following information.

The issue began Friday evening, Dec. 28, as RMU received reports of short outages, where lights were flickering or blinking on and off, according to Bourne.

RMU crews contacted Ameren crews, who said they were having an issue on a 138 kV line that services Rolla. Bourne said he was not sure exactly where on the transmission line the problem occurred.

Because of the issue on Ameren’s transmission feeder line to Rolla, Bourne said it was decided to shut the line off.

He noted that normally, power would then be transferred to another line coming into Rolla, but because of a different problem at a substation in Rolla, “for some reason that transfer didn’t work.”

Bourne said RMU linemen worked to restore power early Saturday morning and power was restored in about 45 minutes, around 4:30 a.m.

After Ameren crews fixed the issue Saturday on the transmission feeder line into Rolla, Bourne said RMU then switched back to getting power from that line.